Stubs - Goldfinger

Goldfinger (1964): Starring: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman. Directed by Guy Hamilton. Produced by Harry Saltzman, Albert R. Broccoli. Screenplay by Richard Maibaum, Paul Dehn Based on the novel Goldfinger by Ian Fleming (London, 1959). Run Time: 110 min Color, UK and U.S. Espionage, Drama, Action.

While the first two Bond films, Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963) might be considered modest successes at the box office, such was not the case with Goldfinger. With its third installment, the Bond franchise exploded. Part of the success may have been an effort by producers Harry Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli to aim the movie at the U.S. audience. For the first time, a Bond film would involve the United States proper in the storyline. The previous films had taken place in the Caribbean and Europe.

In addition, the budget for this third film was equal to the combined budgets of the first two. Production took place between January and June 1964 and shooting took place in the UK, Switzerland and the U.S.

Originally, the plan had been to make a movie out of Thunderball, but there were lawsuits at the time between Ian Fleming, the author of the novels and Kevin McClory, a friend who had helped him with an adaptation of the James Bond character that became a screenplay called Longitude 78 West (later renamed Thunderball). When the film deal fell through, Fleming used the screenplay as the basis for a Bond novel called Thunderball.

Even though Fleming would sign over his rights to the novel to McClory, McClory would reach an agreement with Saltzman and Broccoli to make the novel into a movie, Thunderball (1965).

Later McClory would use his rights to Thunderball to make Never Say Never Again (1983). Legal issues would continue to cloud this Bond novel and film until November 15, 2013, when MGM and Danjaq, Eon Productions’ parent company, announced they had acquired all rights and interests of McClory’s estate.

There were also some casting changes amongst the supporting players. The part of CIA agent, Felix Leiter, who had been played by Jack Lord in Dr. No, would be one of the most notable. Apparently, Lord’s ego got the best of him as he demanded co-star billing, a bigger role, and more money to reprise the role of Felix Leiter, leading producers to find another actor for the part. Lord proved to be replaceable.

James Bond (Sean Connery) using a grappling hook at the beginning of the film.

The film opens with James Bond (Sean Connery) destroying a drug laboratory in Latin America. Using a timing device and wearing a tuxedo under his wetsuit, Bond is safely in a night club when the big explosion he’s set goes off. He is supposed to leave for Miami in an hour, so he uses his time wisely. He goes to the apartment of a girlfriend (Marian Collins) who happens to be taking a bath when he arrives. But in a reflection in her eyeball, Bond sees a man sneaking up behind him and a fight ensues. Bond manages to knock the man into the girl’s bathtub. And when the man reaches for Bond’s gun, which happens to be next to the tub, Bob throws in an electric fan and the man is executed.

Felix Leiter (Cec Linder), Bond, and Dink (Margaret Nolan).

Bond’s stay in Miami might appear to be a vacation, as we first see him getting a massage from Dink (Margaret Nolan), but it’s not. Felix Leiter (Cec Linder), Bond’s CIA contact in the states, relays Bond’s orders from London. He’s really there to watch Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe), who is one of the world’s wealthiest men and is suspected of depleting England’s gold reserves through smuggling. Goldfinger happens to be staying at the same Miami hotel.

James Bond consults with Goldfinger's secretary, Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton).

Every day, with the help of an accomplice, his secretary Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton), Goldfinger has been cheating Mr. Simmons (Austin Willis) at gin rummy, taking him for thousands of dollars. Jill, dressed in a bikini, lies out on Goldfinger’s room’s balcony and, using a telescope and a communication device, relays information to her boss. Figuring out the operation, Bond moves to stop Jill and notifies Goldfinger to lose the money won back to the man or face the police. After that, Bond seduces Jill.

Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) has been cheating Mr. Simmons (Austin Willis) at gin rummy.

Afterward, Bond gets out of bed to grab another bottle of cold bubbly from the fridge, saying drinking warm Dom Perignon is like listening to the Beatles without earmuffs, But while he’s in the kitchen, Oddjob (Harold Sakata), who we only see in shadows here, knocks Bond out. When he comes to, Jill is dead, her body painted gold. Her cause of death is reported as “epidermal suffocation”.

Bond in M's (Bernard Lee) office.

Back in London, Bond barely has time to flirt with Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), M’s secretary, before being informed of his objective by M (Bernard Lee) and Colonel Smithers (Richard Vernon), a Bank of England official. They want to know how Goldfinger smuggles gold internationally.

Before leaving on his dangerous mission, Bond visits Q’s (Desmond Llewelyn) lab, where he is shown the 1963 Aston Martin DB5 that has been tricked out for his use and he is given some homing devices he can use as well.

Bond loses a golf game with Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe).

At his golf club, the Pro hooks up Goldfinger with Bond, and the two play a high-stakes golf match with a bullion of recovered Nazi Gold as the prize. Oddjob serves as Goldfinger’s caddy and Hawker (Gerry Duggan) as Bond’s. Once again, Bond discovers Goldfinger is cheating when Oddjob replaces his ball lost in the rough. Bond decides to play a little trick on Goldfinger and replace his ball with another, which he doesn’t reveal until after the 18^th hole. Goldfinger has to forfeit the match and pay Bond the equivalent of the Nazi Gold ($5000). Before Goldfinger departs, he has Oddjob give Bond a demonstration of his skills as he throws his razor-brimmed hat and severs the head off one of the nearby statues.

Oddjob (Harold Sakata) serves as Goldfinger's caddy.

But Bond doesn’t take the hint and follows them to Goldfinger’s factory, using one of the tracking devices he managed to plant on Goldfinger’s Rolls Royce at the club. During his tail, a sniper takes a shot and Bond thinks it’s at him. He manages to capture the sniper, Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet), by using one of the trick devices on his car to destroy two of the tires on her 1965 Ford Mustang. He drops her off at a gas station so she can wait for new tires and he goes back to his tracking.

Bond manages to break into Goldfinger’s factory and observe the car being stripped as part of the process. The factory workers, like the bulk of Goldfinger’s crew, are Chinese, even given the Alpine location. The car, which is one of Goldfinger’s methods of smuggling, is made of solid gold. Bond also overhears him talking to a Red Chinese agent named Mr. Ling (Burt Kwouk) about "Operation Grand Slam". On the way back to his car, Bond comes across Tilly, whom he learns wants to kill Goldfinger for killing her sister Jill back in Miami. Alarms for intruders have already gone off and the two are surrounded and can’t get away. Tilly, at Bond’s instructions, tries to make a run for it, but is killed by Oddjob’s hat, though it doesn’t decapitate her as it had the statue.

Bond is forced back to the factory, where the gatekeeper is an elderly woman (Varley Thomas) who looks like she’s taking a break from baking cookies to let the convoy inside. Even though Bond has a gun pointed at him, when the convoy turns right, he turns left. Using the ejector seat on the Aston Martin, he rids himself of his captor, but he cannot escape. His bulletproof windshield is badly pitted by the machinegun-wielding gatekeeper and, unable to see, Bond crashes.

Bond wakes up strapped down with a laser pointed at him.

When he comes to, Bond finds himself strapped down to a solid gold cutting table underneath an industrial laser, which begins to slice a sheet of gold in half. (Note: this is supposedly the first time a laser was used in a movie.) Bond can’t figure out what Goldfinger wants until he is told, “I want you to die, Mr. Bond.” But in order to save his life, Bond lies to Goldfinger, telling him that MI6 already knows about Operation Grand Slam and if he dies, Agent 008 will come in his place. Even though he’s wary of what Bond is telling him, Goldfinger decides to spare Bond's life, though he knocks Bond out with a tranquilizer.

Bond wakes up in mid-flight on a plane piloted by Pussy Galore (Honor Blackmon). Pussy seems to be immune to Bond’s charms and flies him to Goldfinger’s stud farm in Kentucky. Even though he is locked up in a security cell, Bond manages to escape by tricking the guard into thinking he’s escaped. Bond manages to eavesdrop on Goldfinger telling his plan to a group of American gangsters who have been doing his bidding for him. They are all owed $1 million each for their smuggling efforts, but Goldfinger promises them if they wait a day he’ll make it $10 million.

Goldfinger divulges his plans to rob Fort Knox.

They are skeptical, but listen to his plan, which is to break into Fort Knox. The plan is for Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus, consisting of hot women flying planes, spraying Delta 9 nerve gas to knock out the 40,000 plus troops guarding the base. And then steal the gold.

While overhearing the plans, Bond is recaptured by Pussy and some of Goldfinger’s henchmen.

All but one of the gangsters, Mr. Solo (Martin Benson), goes along with the plan and wants his million-dollar payoff in gold now rather than wait. Bond is there when Solo departs, slipping his tracking device and a note about the plans into Solo’s coat pocket. Solo is then driven to the airport, but is instead killed by Oddjob and the car they’d been riding in is crushed into a cube, which Oddjob transports back to the stud farm. The other gangsters receive a dose of the nerve gas and are killed.

Meanwhile, Felix, who has been tracking the device, goes to the farm when the device is crushed. He and his partner are discovered watching Goldfinger with binoculars. Thinking they might be looking for Bond, he calls for the agent. Bond discovers Goldfinger’s plan. Stealing the gold, Bond figures would take too many men, trucks, and time, but that’s not what Goldfinger plans to do.

Instead, in cahoots with the Chinese, Goldfinger plans on exploding a nuclear device built by Ling inside the vault. The gold won’t be destroyed but will be radioactive for 58 years. The Chinese will be able to cause chaos in the West and Goldfinger’s own gold reserves will be worth ten times as much as they are today.

To sell that Bond is in no danger, Goldfinger has arranged for Pussy to openly flirt with the agent while he and Oddjob try to retrieve his gold from Solo’s death cube.

Felix observes Pussy walking Bond to a barn and, thinking 007 is up to his normal womanizing, the two agents go back to their hotel.

Pussy Galore (Honor Blackmon) seems to be immune to Bond's charms.

Once alone, Bond tries hard to seduce Pussy, but she seems to want no part of him. But after throwing each other around the barn, Pussy succumbs to Bond’s physical advances.

The next day, the plan goes as planned. Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus knock out all of the troops around Fort Knox. Wearing U.S. soldier uniforms and led by Kisch (Michael Mellinger), Goldfinger’s troops enter the depository, and Ling arms the bomb, which resembles a long steel box. Bond is attached to it and the timer set.

But before the operation is completed, U.S. troops, who had been faking it, enter the depository and fight with Goldfinger’s troops. But the big safe door that protects the gold is closed before Kisch or Oddjob can get back through. Kisch doesn’t want to die, but Oddjob is fully committed to the plan and kills Kisch by throwing him over the railing and down to the floor where Bond is.

Bond fights Oddjob.

Bond manages to get the keys to the handcuffs off of Kisch’s body, but Oddjob is on top of him quickly. He throws his hat at Bond, but instead severes some electrical lines. Oddjob is an almost impossible foe. Being hit by gold bricks doesn’t slow him down and he knows more martial arts than Bond. He is stronger and relentless. All looks lost for Bond until he manages to throw Oddjob’s derby into some metal bars, wedging it there. When Oddjob goes to retrieve it, Bond sticks one of the live electric lines onto the bars and fries Oddjob, at last killing him.

Goldfinger disguises himself as an American General.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Goldfinger seems to have planned for the possibility of his plan going awry and disguises himself as a U.S. general. He shoots and kills Ling before he can be exposed and then escapes into the chaos around him.

The vault doors open at Fort Knox.

The vault door opens as U.S. troops advance, but Goldfinger’s troops retreat inside. While there is a gun battle being waged around him, Bond uses a couple of bricks of gold to open the casing around the bomb. But time starts to run out and Bond doesn’t know how to defuse it. Luckily, an atomic specialist who accompanied Leiter turns off the device with the clock stopped on "0:07".

Bond manages to diffuse the bomb with the timer down to 7 seconds.

With Fort Knox safe, Bond is invited to the White House for a meeting with the President. It is revealed that Pussy had a change of heart after her roll in the hay with Bond and not only replaced the nerve gas in the planes, but had called to warn Washington about the plan. She is piloting the plane, but the rest of the crew has been put out of commission by Goldfinger, who is waiting onboard the plane to hijack it to Cuba.

There is a struggle for Goldfinger’s gun, which discharges, shooting out a window. In the explosive compression that follows, Goldfinger is sucked out through the ruptured window. With the plane out of control, Bond rescues Pussy and they parachute safely away before the plane crashes into the ocean.

While Felix leads a rescue mission, Bond and Pussy make whoopee under the parachute.

The film was a huge success for its time, making back its $3 million budget almost overnight. Thanks to a marketing campaign and the popularity of all things British, the movie made $125 million, back before $100 million in box office was expected.

Sean Connery, the definitive Bond, was about halfway through his original stint of playing 007, a role he would grow to hate after five appearances, even though he would return to the role in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Never Say Never Again (1983), and do voice work on the EA videogame From Russia With Love (2005).

His Bond, while handsome (and wearing a toupee) and suave is also smart. Not always the strongest, fastest, best trained, or best armed, Bond is always the most clever and best-dressed man in the room. Connery epitomizes all that a Bond should be: stylish, well-spoken, and always winning, whether through lying, seduction or simply outthinking his opponent. No one seems to be able to kill him.

While maybe not a household name now, Honor Blackman was at the time a fairly big name, especially in England, where she had starred as Cathy Gale in The Avengers TV series from 1962 to 1964. She’s also had a top-five hit in the UK in a duet with her Avengers co-star Patrick Macnee with the song "Kinky Boots". After appearing in Goldfinger, she would release an album of songs called Everything I Got.

Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore.

Blackman has the honor of being the oldest of the Bond Girls. She was 39 when she starred as Pussy Galore, but she is everything a Bond Girl, or rather woman, should be. While I had never heard of her before or since this film, she seems to be the gold standard for Bond’s romantic interest. She is attractive, smart, and physical. She was more than a match for Bond. The closest Bond woman to her would be Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).

Blackman’s film career had started in 1947 in a non-speaking role in Fame Is the Spur. Still an active actress, she appeared in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Doctor Who’s Terror of the Vervoids (1986), Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001), and the short-lived British series By Any Means (2013).

Gert Fröbe was a German actor. A one-time Nazi, he left the party in 1937 and hid two Jews from the Gestapo during the War. Fröbe gained local fame in one of the first German films made after World War II, Berliner Ballade (1948). He would also appear in Fritz Lang’s last film, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) and starred in its sequel, The Return of Dr. Mabuse (1961). He would appear in The Longest Day (1961), Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), $ (1971) and Ingmar Bergman’s The Serpent’s Egg (1977). Here he plays a menacing villain and sets the standard for Bond adversaries to come.

Harold Sakata was an American wrestler who won a Silver Medal for the U.S. in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. Goldfinger’s Oddjob was Sakata’s first and best-known film role. Oddjob communicates through grunts, so I can’t say what Sakata’s speaking voice really sounded like. A very memorable sidekick, he would appear as Oddjob in a series of Vick’s Formula 44 commercials and would sometimes be credited with Oddjob listed as his middle name, as in The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977).

Desmond Llewelyn began to play Q in From Russia With Love, though he was called Major Boothroyd in that film, and would continue to play the character throughout all the other changes in the franchise, last appearing in The World Is Not Enough (1999). He would die that same year. But in this film, director Guy Hamilton wanted him to add some humor to the role and thus the friendly antagonism between inventor and agent began. Their banter would be a hallmark of the series no matter who was playing 007.

And let’s not forget the car and the gadgets. The 1963 Aston Martin DB5 is the ultimate Bond car and the gadgets may seem dated but were what every Cold War spy would want, from license plates that change at the push of a button to ejector seats and smoke screens.

Every Bond film seems to have two women Bond seduces. One is usually a plaything that dies or is forgotten when the main action starts. The other is a more challenging woman Bond has to try hard to seduce. While Blackman was obviously the latter, Shirley Eaton was the former. She was the plaything Bond girl and agreed to do the role as long as the nudity was handled tastefully. She also has one of the most memorable deaths in any Bond film, dying of gold paint in a disease Flemming made up for the book.

Always on alert for anything Beatles-related, two supporting actors would first appear in A Hard Day’s Night (1964). Richard Vernon, Colonel Smithers, is immediately recognizable as the man who shared the train with the Beatles at the beginning of the film. In fact, he was probably on his way to work at the Bank of England.

Margaret Nolan has a very small role in the film as Dink, but she also appeared as the girl in gold in much of the film’s advertisement. A former model, Nolan would appear in both the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night and Gerry and The Pacemaker’s Ferry Cross the Mersey (1965).

With the third Bond film, it appears Eon Productions had hit on a winning formula they’ve been emulating ever since. The films should start with an explosive action sequence, feature fast cars, gadgets, two love interests, a friendly antagonism between Q and Bond, a villain with bigger-than-life destructive goals, and a pop title song, this case a top-10 hit, "Goldfinger" as sung by Shirley Bassey.

While Goldfinger wasn’t the first Bond film to feature a pop genre title song, Goldfinger is much more memorable than Matt Monro’s From Russia with Love which peaked at 20 in the British charts, but failed to chart in the U.S. From now on, there would be an attempt to get a big star to write and/or sing the title song.

The Bond films grew out of the Cold War and having the Red Chinese as the enemy falls right in with that mindset. Through the years, as the Cold War would thaw, the enemy would change from Chinese and Russian communists to Western industrialists and moneymen, but this Bond is closer to its paranoid better-dead-than-red origins.

Even though elements of the story might be outdated, especially where technology (everyone uses lasers now) is concerned, this is the ultimate Bond film. When you think of a Bond film, you’re really thinking about this film. Not only is arguably the best Bond in the film (actually this isn’t really an argument, Connery was the best Bond), but all the other elements that make Bond Bond are present, from the shaken but not stirred martinis, to impossible escapes and Bond girls.

This film has what is arguably the most iconic image of any Bond film, the gold-painted dead woman lying across Bond’s bed, but also the most double entendre name of any character in Pussy Galore. You can’t beat Goldfinger; all other Bond films, good or bad, are simply copies of the formula this one set down 50 years ago.

If you see only one Bond film, it should be Goldfinger.